The display of merchandise is very important as it has been well established that the majority of consumers make purchases based on merchandise that displayed rather than stored in box. For this reason it is important that the placement of merchandise be at a location and height that will is readily visible to the consumer.
When all the merchandise will readily fit on a horizontal shelf, the placement of merchandise is not difficult but items behind the first row may be difficult to see. Also, it is difficult to rearrange merchandise on the shelves or try to easily move the merchandise when placed upon a shelf.
When merchandise does not readily fit on a shelf, or the use of a shelf does not provide for proper viewing, the display of the merchandise becomes a problem. One of the solutions has been to provide a wall or vertical service onto which merchandise can be hung for display. A common, well known wall of this type is pegboard. Hangers onto which the merchandise is secured for display can be secured to the pegboard at various locations and various heights. However, because of the many holes in the pegboard, its appearance is not very becoming. An alternative to this is the “slat wall” which presents an improved and more acceptable display appearance.
Slat walls are constructed of members that enable merchandise or items to be readily mounted on and removed from the wall with the use of tools are known. These walls are commonly used in structures which display merchandise offered for sale in retail stores. The walls or structures are available in many convenient lengths which enable them to be custom fit to various retail locations. They can also be mounted on supports which permit relative motion of the walls, i.e. rotation. This type of structure enables more merchandise to be displayed on a given area of floor space. These walls can be provided with inter fitting connections at the top and bottom edges thereof. This enables them to be stacked vertically to form a wall of any desired height without any gaps or unusable areas at the junctions of the connections. Hardware which is used in conjunction with the display of merchandise for sale is readily mounted onto and removed from these walls as necessary. Normally the walls include a substantially horizontal slot or groove which is recessed relative to the vertical front face of the wall. One or more pieces of hardware are secured to the wall utilizing the horizontal slot or groove.
In addition to displaying individual merchandise items, there are situations where a cabinet, enclosure, or other large object is required to be mounted to a slat wall. Currently the only methods of securing a cabinet or enclosure to a slat wall it to use fasteners, such as screws, bolts, or nails. Also, adhesives can be employed to permanently secure the cabinet or enclosure to the slat wall. None of these methods enable the cabinet or enclosure to be readily moved on the slat wall or secured to the slat wall without the use of tools.
A number of patents have attempted to address the current problem of mounting large objects to the wall. U.S. Pat. No. 4,944,416, issued to Peterson et al., disclose a light-weight slotted panel for mounting merchandise of a front face thereof. The panel is formed from a high density light-weight core composed of molded-board expanded plastic foam and is provided with a front facing sheet laminated thereto. Parallel slots are formed in both the core and facing sheet and configured to accept compatible merchandising accessories.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,662,592, issued to Garfinkle, discloses a unitary pegboard hanger assembly which includes a hanger protruding perpendicularly from a hook back plate, a hook member protruding on the opposite side thereof as the hanger, at least one protrusion perpendicular to the hook back plate on the same side thereof as the hook member and proximate thereto. The hanger assembly is sized to snugly fit into a pegboard hole together with the hook member.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,425,568, issued to Albright, discloses an arrangement and system for a visual presentation of information on a classroom or group basis. A wall surface of a room is provided with a plurality of parallel vertically spaced mounting strips which cooperate with the wall surface to form upper and lower retention channels for demountably supporting such items as blackboards, apertures boards, storage cabinets, wardrobes and/or any other items used in a classroom. The mounting strips also provide mounting means for swingably mounting vertically disposed display panels which are used in conjunction with the other items mounted on the walls for instructional purposes.
Accordingly, there exists a need for hardware in the form of a securing assembly which enables a cabinet or other structure to be readily secured to, repositioned on and removed from a “slat wall” without the use of tools or adhesives.